The school is bursting at the seams in its effort to accommodate students from the burgeoning hinterland with its proliferation of new houses and new families.

While new primary schools have been established to cater for swelling numbers, a new post primary school, promised since 2006, is now delayed until 2012.

The existing community school has a cap of 270 on the number of new pupils it enrolls each year, while this year the demand rose to 315.

The school's enrolment policy gives priority to siblings and then to pupils of up to 17 primary schools, ranked according to distance from the community school.

"Unfortunately, because of the huge number of applicants, we cannot accept all of the students who are in our catchment area who would normally have no difficulty in getting a place," the principal Mr Finn said.

The parents of 45 children received a letter from Mr Finn this week informing them that the school was not in a position to offer their child a place in September. Instead, he invited them to attend a lottery draw to decide the allocation of the small number of remaining places as well as the waiting-list ranking of applicants who did not gain entry.

The lottery was held on March 25 and was conducted by a local garda.

One of the primary schools most affected is St Mary's National School, Ballygarret, which has a long tradition of sending pupils to Gorey Community School but which has lowest priority on the school’s enrolment list since it is outside the school’s catchment area.

Cathal Lee, son of Edel Finan, chairwoman of Ballygarret Education Action Group, was placed 24th on the lottery waiting list for the Gorey school.

"We feel we are being denied a right to choose an education for our children," Ms Finan said. (Source: Irish Independent)